using windows search service in pdfvwr

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BringR
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using windows search service in pdfvwr

Post by BringR »

I'd like to know if it is possible to use windows search service from within pdfvwr...

Background: I've got a folder filled with pdf's, which i want to search for their content.

pdfvwr is nice to use, but what it does is: it goes recursively through the files stored in the given folder and searches for the given searchstring...

Now I did the following: I added the folder to the documents-library. This makes windows index the files with the windows search service. thanx to your pdf IFilter, I get very fast answers to my searches using the win search option (Start/search...)....

now my question is: is it possible to implement this index based search (which is installed on almost every win pc) into pdfvwr, so that one can search from within pdfvwr getting ultra fast responses when searchin indexed folders or libraries?

shouldn't be too strong for developers, cause they do not need to do the indexing stuff any more... there should be interfaces tho use that buil-in windows search service... look https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/librar ... 85%29.aspxfor example

Regards
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Tracker Supp-Stefan
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Re: using windows search service in pdfvwr

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello BringR,

Welcome to our forums and thanks for your suggestion.
The Viewer is now no longer developed, as it has been replaced by the PDF XChange Editor:
https://www.pdf-xchange.com/produc ... nge-editor
So please do download and give the Editor a try. I am not sure if it utilizes the windows indexing when searching for a folder of files inside the Editor itself (Ctrl-Shift-F to open the advanced search) - but it is definitely rather faster than the Viewer!

Regards,
Stefan
BringR
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Re: using windows search service in pdfvwr

Post by BringR »

Hello Stefan,

thanks for your tipp, I installed the editor and gave it a try searching in my pdf-base folder. It did what the viewer did, too. It crawled the folder file-by-file recursively opening every pdf file searching for matches... No use of using the MS Search service indexing.

hope you understand what i mean: The folder to use is already search-indexed by the ms search service. If I used the Start/Search Function of my Win 8.1, then it asks the index and gives ultra fast results without running recurively through the files instead.

My question is, if it would be possible to integrate the ms search service as additional function in ultra fast searching in pdf documents, especially as the tracker pdf IFilter is already implemented and used by the ms search service and also the index goes with high probability through most of the user's data since they mostly store in libraries like "documents"...

Thnx Reinhard
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Re: using windows search service in pdfvwr

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello Reinhard,

Thanks, I do understand what you mean, and will pass it as a suggestion, but at the same time - the advanced search inside the Editor allows you to also e.g. include bookmarks in the search - something that the Shell Extension and Windows Indexing might not be able to do. Also - it is only the initial search that is "slow" (it's still a few times faster than other competing products ;) ) - consecutive searches should be much faster in the same set of files.

Regards,
Stefan
BringR
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Re: using windows search service in pdfvwr

Post by BringR »

Hello Stefan,

I made a test. So I produced an empty pdf file from libre office, then I changed the document properties description and title to
paracetamoxyfrusebendroneomycin
. then stored it to the other 840 pdf files and finally tried to search for
paracetamoxyfrusebendroneomycin
with the editor, the viewer and last but not least tried it with the win search. here are the results:

(made on a Win7 32bit machine)

Code: Select all

Version    1st try    2nd try     3rd try
editor     1:06       0:58        1:02     min:sec
viewer     0:52       0:46        0:47     min:sec
win search: entering [quote]parac[/quote]... was showing the right result before i could define the end ...[quote]etamoxyfrusebendroneomycin[/quote] 
So I Think it's worth to implement the index based win search service. It doesn't index the whole hdd, but users often store their documents in places like "my documents" or in the "documents" library which is indexed automatically. Using the index from within the editor or viewer could perform extreme fast search results. I would have wondered if the win search service wouldn't have found the description or title tag. Remember: from scratch it wouldn't find anything concerning pdf's, but the tracker IFilter installed with the viewer or editor makes it possible ....

I was wondering about the search times. I expected to get faster after the first run because of cahing etc. But with the editor that doesen't seem to be right. Also I wondered about the fact that the editor took avg. 28% more time to run through the data.

Maybe these times are competitive. But the fastest result I got when searching manually by using win search service at start/search...

So make a suggestion. I think using the index search from a given and already running/tested search index will guide you to the best-in-class at searching pdf's on a win pc. That is competition!

Regards

Reinhard
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Re: using windows search service in pdfvwr

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hi BringR,

Thanks for sharing your test results! Going to discuss this with our devs!

Regards,
Stefan
Jerry9
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Re: using windows search service in pdfvwr

Post by Jerry9 »

What did you find out regarding the newer version of the editor? Is there another thread that continues the discussion? Please provide a link, if so.
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Re: using windows search service in pdfvwr

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello Jerry,

You have posted in a topic that is more than 3 years old now, so I can't really remember what the findings were at the time!
In any case - we've done improvements to search speeds, and as such the Editor should be at least as good as the Viewer was at the time!
Can you please tell us if you experience any issues currently? And if you do - maybe it will be good to start a new topic for that!

Regards,
Stefan
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